The Newest New New York City Neighborhoods
Hurricane Sandy gave #SoPo (South of Power) its day as a trending topic. But what are the other up-and-coming areas? Here are some of the new New York City Neighborhoods:
SALIVA (Streets Around Little Italy and Vicinity)
If you have a taste for the pungent, SALIVa is for you. This neighborhood begins somewhere beneath the Williamsburg Bridge and seeps West until you don’t like the shops anymore. Goose your pallet with the wines of Italy and the culinary fare of Chinatown as you breathe in the designer perfumes, aromatherapy candles, and scented room sprays of Soho. Ponder the lengths to which your ancestors went to move out of the five-story tenement of your desires. SALIVa truly is a formerly rent-controlled cafeteria for the senses!
NOMOOLA (North Moore Over to Lafayette)
Once a home to light industry, this district—which radiates from North Moore, crossing White Street on its way to Lafayette—is now home to the business executives and financial wizards who can both pay the unregulated loft space rents and appreciate the whimsical architectural touches left behind by the earlier wave of artist occupants who gave NoMoOLa its name.
CLOTH (Closer Than Hartford)
CloTH may be a land-locked neighborhood bounded on all sides by Astoria, but for apartment-seekers from out-of-state looking to shorten the workday commute, CloTH allows residents to boast “it’s only 15 minutes door-to-door to Roosevelt Island if an express train making skip stops arrives just as you reach the platform.” It’s a dream come true for those with excellent timing who work on Roosevelt Island! On the weekends, stroll with your exotic lover, hand in hand, down boulevards of discount leather coat outlets and automobile parts distributors waiting to be discovered. Return home with your treasures to large living spaces with easy-care linoleum walls inside and easy-care green painted cement outside.
STUMBLES (Stretch of Unlit Malodorous Bars on a Lollygag down the East Side)
Second Avenue from the Low 30s to 14th Street earned its name in the days just prior to the current proliferation of Irish bars and bars with perfectly Irish-sounding names. Out-of-towners should avoid those bars that water down their potions and follow the locals to reputable spots where hard liquor will change your speech change to that of Roseanne or the Hamburglar (depending on your age and gender). N.B. in StUMBLES, St. Patrick’s Day still is known as “amateur night.”
RUMBA (Residences Under Manhattan Bridge Area)
Characterized by its elevator-free lifestyle and proximity to a true looming architectural wonder, this is the up-and-coming region for those without preferences for a particular type of music. A walk through RUMBA on a warm summer’s night is a sternum-thumping smorgasbord of bass notes from car speakers, apartment speakers, and speakers in bodegas, restaurants, and bars. Music is everywhere, especially if you heed the local custom which dictates that every pedestrian must carry his or her own sound system.
DIAPER (Diagonal from Prospect Park to the East River)
Not-quite Brooklyn Heights, not-quite Prospect Park, this is where all your friends move when they finally decide to have that baby. Prepare for plenty of inter-borough travel if you ever want to see them again, for once they settle into DiaPER, there will be no extracting them from a neighborhood that offers all the dark tree-lined streets of the suburbs without compromising on the prices, dirt, and brunch crowds of the city.
TROLL (Tramway Onramp near Lower Level of the 59th Street Bridge)
Home to plenty of shade beneath the entrance to the Queensborough Bridge, TrOLL is the place to heed the large, free-standing traffic signs warning of construction and congestion in Queens. Ideal for those who watch and wait.
SOWHAT (South West of Holland Tunnel)
Allegedly named after the retort to a resident’s braggadocio (“I live quite near the UPS facility”), loyal long-timers insist the neighborhood is merely overlooked.
MEANDER (Mott, East to Allen, then North to Delancey, then East again to Ridge)
Any number of exciting new things go on all the time in the City, but living in the MEANDER district really takes the pressure off: no need to make things happen when your neighborhood, itself, is so happening. Artists and poets, musicians and philosophers — they all have lived here in their salad days, and these are yours. Why hurry when you could just as easily miss something very cool right where you are as you rush to some awesome thing going on wherever you’re going? Roll out whenever you like. The minute you leave the apartment, you’ll be convinced there is something excellent right around the corner; and whenever you arrive, you’ll have the feeling you just missed another singular and legendary edgy urban experience!
SMIRK (Secured Mainly In Return for Key Money)
This highly-desirable area of the city [N.B. The borders of SMIRK were disputed by all of the 17 brokers consulted for this article] is the most fashionable neighborhood and contains the wittiest and most accomplished residents. Familiar to the influential few, home to the best parties and private cultural happenings for the select, only well-connected insiders may live in these elusive large, airy, sun-lit apartments reputed to inspire torrents of creativity in their passionate and successful owners. If you must, ask around to find out exactly where it is and who lives there, be discreet. Also, you cannot afford it.